I'm sure you paid FICA for your employees. Separately, not taking a salary as an owner is asking for trouble. DUCY?

You probably didn't pay FICA as a federal employee because you were eligible for a separate defined benefit retirement plan.

Curious how the passing of ACA directly led to a rational decision to lay off workers. Were you able to automate their work?

I am assuming their tasks were essential to the company and that they were not being employed on some sort of charitable basis.

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No. I have always paid FICA.

This is correct.

MM

The height of the poker boom was in the middle of a deep recession so i dont know what the **** you’re on, even if your assumptions are correct, which they arent

The number of books we were selling year to year dropped.

What a dumb statement. By the way, my wife and I do have our own charity, but what we give away doesn't go to company employees.

MM

The Poker Boom was for us approximately 2003 through 2009. 2005 was our best year for selling books, and 2008 was our best year for this website.

It wasn't that the years after 2009 were bad, but by 2010 things were slowing down as far as we were concerned.

Mason

I'd say the height of popularity was easily 2008-2011, but anyway, my point is the state of the economy seems a terrible predictor for the state of poker.

without a doubt the boom would've lasted much longer without the site shutdowns in the USA.

personal anecdote - i don't play poker anymore because the sites are terrible, the rake is high, and the games are bad. It has absolutely nothing to do with my disposable income, which is higher than it's ever been at any point in my life.

Well, we were seeing a definite slowdown in 2010. For others it certainly might have been different.

I agree that things would have been much better and while the decline may have still happened, the rate of decline would certainly had been slower.

I certainly agree on the rake being too high.

Mason

I recall you stating you would layoff workers if ACA passed and then in this thread you seemed to relate the two.

Good to see you now implicitly admit that there would be no rational explanation for this unless you could somehow automate/outsource, or the work was already superfluous.

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We did lay off a couple of people and a couple of our ad representatives do virtually no work for us anymore.

In our case, the ACA didn't directly affect us because we're too small of a company employee wise. But you need to understand that whenever the government does something, whatever it might be, that reduces disposable income it's going to hurt poker, and whenever the government does something that increases disposable income, it should help poker.

By the way, since health insurance seems to be such an important issue for you, I believe that it should be ended except for catastrophic insurance. What I notice is that when in a doctor's office there are usually a bunch of clerks working insurance forms for every doctor, plus the fact that the insurance company makes a profit. So eliminating health insurance should bring health care costs down and probably by a lot.

Now I also recognize that this idea is more complex than it at first appears because what is a catastrophic amount for a low income person may not be the same for someone of higher income. But this is something that can be worked out. Also, there would be the medicare issue for people who have spent years paying into the system who when older expect to get something back. And probably a few other things.

Mason

Good info. I guess since Trump just put $1.5T on the credit card we can assume it's good for poker then.

Question asked and answered.

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You continue to vote for the party that passed UIGEA

Ok so you edited your post to make mine nonsensical.

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Actually, this is a concern. The idea is that the tax cuts should stimulate economic growth which will increase revenue to the government, and it certainly was that way under Reagan.

However, under Reagan interest rates started to come down, which is also good for growing the economy while the fear now is that interest rates will go up which can hurt long term growth. My hope is that the Fed can raise interest rates slowly, to combat inflation, without reducing the economic growth. That's the gamble.

Now it happens to be a gamble that I think is worth taking, but there is certainly risk involved.

Mason

While health insurance is an important issue for me, it's not why I brought it up.

I just happen to resent the old saw about how any tax/benefit/protection conferred onto workers will invariably end up harming them or will be passed onto consumers in some way. It's the sort of economic logic that works on rubes, but is beneath the level of the forum that you own.

I'll allow others to ask about how the Reagan tax cuts actually *raised* govt revenue.

No

NLH began to rear its ugly face when it gave its viewers the ability to see the player's hole cards in what was the biggest televised hold'em tournaments that included the best or what was believed to be the best poker players at the time.

Live poker + disposable income/08 crash held each other's hands as it leaped of the cliff while the most determined flocked into online poker for the hope that it would suit their fancy. It later ****ed them just the same.

Trickle down ITT.

It's correct that the UIGEA hurt many poker businesses.

I must be missing something here. I don't believe that any of these people endorse anti-poker policy. There are specific well known Republicans like Lindsey Graham who are anti-poker, and I did speak out about defeating him in his 2014 reelection bid for the Senate (which unfortunately had no chance to happen).

Mason

Well looky here boys, we've got us a REAGAN REPUBLICAN that thinks dynamic scoring is real. They may have laid off workers because of Obamacare-but-not-really-Obamacare, but 2p2 definitely did not cut any costs on Kool-Aid.

unreal that the thread wasnt locked after this post as the discussion should've ended there

Hi MM

lol

Best wishes,
yeSpiff

Since low taxes and minimal regulation are the two most important things to a healthy poker economy then the best games should be in the 3rd world where both conditions can be found in abundance.

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Mason, in your op you mention numerous regulations had been eliminated that will benefit the Poker economy. What regulations specifically were you referring to and how will each benefit the economy?

In my experience, players with little money tend to be overly tight and easy for me to exploit. The last 13 months I have actually found that the vast sums of money flowing into 3-6 holdem is ruining my win-rate.